Nowhere But Here by Katie McGarry

Grade: 4 Butterflies
SeriesSeries: Thunder Road #1
Author: Katie McGarry
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Goodreads Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Emily likes her life the way it is: doting parents, good friends, good school in a safe neighborhood. Sure, she's curious about her biological father—the one who chose life in a motorcycle club, the Reign of Terror, over being a parent—but that doesn't mean she wants to be a part of his world. But when a reluctant visit turns to an extended summer vacation among relatives she never knew she had, one thing becomes clear: nothing is what it seems. Not the club, not her secret-keeping father and not Oz, a guy with suck-me-in blue eyes who can help her understand them both. 

Oz wants one thing: to join the Reign of Terror. They're the good guys. They protect people. They're…family. And while Emily—the gorgeous and sheltered daughter of the club's most respected member—is in town, he's gonna prove it to her. So when her father asks him to keep her safe from a rival club with a score to settle, Oz knows it's his shot at his dream. What he doesn't count on is that Emily just might turn that dream upside down. 

No one wants them to be together. But sometimes the right person is the one you least expect, and the road you fear the most is the one that leads you home.

Katie McGarry is one of the few contemporary authors that I love. I have a very shaky relationship with the contemporary genre but I loved every single Katie McGarry book I have read. So, it's no surprise that I read this one as soon as I got my hands on a copy. This book was wonderful and so freaking great! As usual, Katie McGarry writes amazing characters who have a well full of depth and combines a love story with family life and very emotional issues. I just loved the story between Oz and Emily and her relationship with her family.

This books starts out with a very simple plot, Emily goes to met her biological father and his family and gets sucked into the world. However, as usual with Katie McGarry books, there is this emotional undertone that made this plot very complex and so addicting. Emily doesn't really like her father's family or her father for that matter and she makes judgments that she never really fully tries to contradict. What really makes Katie McGarry books are these emotional undertones that not only gives the plot complexity but also gives the characters so much depth and makes them so easy to connect to. However, I felt this book fell a little short, that she didn't focus on the emotional undertones as much as I would have liked and the book suffered a bit for it. This book is still very emotional and the characters have a lot of depth but Katie McGarry didn't go as deep into the emotional sides of the characters as she usually does.

The characters in this book were wonderful! I loved Oz and I really liked Emily and I absolutely adored them together. I really liked how they taught each other things and they grew and developed not only from what happens in the plot but also just from knowing each other. That is the kind of relationship I love reading about and I loved seeing them go from hated strangers to friends to being love with each other. They worked so well with each other and I loved reading their interactions with each other!

Now, I loved how this book wasn't just a love story between Oz and Emily, but also between Emily and her family. Through this book Emily learns to love her new family, she learns that her judgments toward them were wrong and that she likes being with them. I just loved seeing this change in her and I loved her relationships she had with her family members, they were all so well done and they felt so real! I just really appreciated how this family wasn't messed up, abusive, or neglectful, it was a normal family, even though they were kind of weird. They all loved each other but they still had their disagreements.

The plot in this book was highly addictive, I read this whole book in under 24 hours and it got me out of a reading slump. As soon as you start reading you can't put it down! You aren't just reading for the love story, you are also reading because of the setting and the family aspect. Katie McGarry did a wonderful job with the tone of the book and the family biker club aspect. You just had to keep reading because you were just so curious about the whole biker gang and how it all worked, how the gears worked and who did what. I think why I liked this aspect so much was because it was different then the YA norm and it was so well written. I had my own personal problems with how the women were discluded from it and how the men would preach about protecting them like that is the only reason the women married them. I really don't like that troupe but there wasn't a lot of that in this book, there were just a few comments here and there.

Why this is only getting 4 butterflies when I obviously loved this book was because it was very predictable. I didn't predict the big secret everyone was hiding, but this book fit into the Katie McGarry mold like a glove. Why I was glad the Pushing the Limits series ended even though I adored all of the books was because the plots were basically the same; they all fit in the same mold. This never really bothered me much because the characters were all completely different and the emotional undertone in each book were so perfectly written that I didn't care. However, this book fit the exact same mold and it annoyed me because I no longer feared for the characters lives and/or relationships. I'm still going to read every book Katie McGarry releases because they are highly addictive and so beautifully written, but I just wish she mixed it up for this one.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It is amazingly written, highly addictive, and has a love story love story that will make you swoon. Compared to some of her other books though, it isn't my favorite of hers. I feel like she should have branched out and away from her mold and that the emotional undertone should have been focused on more. However, I still really loved this book and I can't wait to read the rest of the series!

This book got....

 4 Butterflies

Beloved, This is a really great book!

Happy Reading